Junior progress earns club award
ANNUAL general meetings, what do they mean to you? Often boring and unnecessarily long? Interesting and exciting as heralds of a new season? A mixture of both?
For the region’s chess clubs it is that time of the year. The new season will soon be upon us and players need to be identified and counted. How many teams can the club support? Should the club be cautious and underestimate the number of teams it can enter in the league. This approach reduces the risk of defaulting boards.
Or over-estimate be ambitious, and take a chance, but create opportunities for all club members to have the opportunity to experience play in league matches?
There is a good case for both approaches. Whichever is chosen, these meetings are important.
Like other league members, Forest Hall Chess Club had their AGM last week and it had its high points. A junior round-robin competition, which ran alongside last year’s league programme, attracted more than 25 entrants and was deservedly won by Ciaran MacDonald, who has improved rapidly.
He also made several appearances in the third division achieving good results there too, with Alan John finished a very worthy second.
With the standard of this competition rising each year it is encouraging for the future of the club. A summer ladder competition with innovative rules, which makes it very competitive and exciting, was won by Ryan Duff with Mark Broughton second and Rolf Millar third gaining more kudos for the younger end of the club.
Then there was the presentation of the league knockout trophy won by the club’s A team who beat the C team in an exciting final.
Finally there was a very big surprise. The prestigious British Chess Educational Trust has for many years (since 1920) given an annual award to an organisation which has done a lot for the development of junior chess in the North of England, typically presenting the honour to a school. This year the Trust received information about the work done at Forest Hall to promote junior chess.
Paul Bielby, the Northumberland County Chess Union delegate, nominated and later presented the club with a special chess set, board and digital clock.
The 2018-19 League season starts soon and will overlap with the World